Playing “Fill the Shopping Cart” on the MAC website — which, I’m not gonna lie, is a game I play almost daily– is about to get that much more awesome and easier, because the MAC Cosmetics website is about to get a makeover.

Yes, the website that zillions of us know and love is about to get completely revamped! — and here’s an exclusive sneak peek. 🙂

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First, welcome home…

Behold! — The new maccosmetics.com homepage

(Click the image to open a larger version.)

(Click the image to open a larger version.)

I recently spent some hands-on time exploring the new website in its almost-ready/beta form (it’s scheduled to go live any day now; expect early June 2015), and finding my way around it was easy-peasy.

When you arrive on the new MAC homepage, you’ll see a long screen that scrolls down with bigger pictures to showcase MAC’s luscious visuals and artistry (this makes my inner photo geek nerd out).

For me the bigger product pictures, much bigger swatches and more side-by-side product comparisons will make the new website much more helpful. Oh, and the new site will also be mobile-friendly.

Head up to the new black navigation bar at the top to find what you want/need. The category names are short ‘n’ sweet and pretty self-explanatory, so it’s easy to get around. Each of the options has a drop-down menu. Or, just do a search using the little magnifying glass in the upper right.

Now when you unexpectedly run out of Costa Riche one hellish day and start full-on panicking (it’s OK; happens to the best of us), a replacement will be easy to find.

Um…not that I’ve ever panicked about running out of Costa Riche before.

No, nothing like that’s ever happened to me (yeah, right). 😉

Collection/limited edition product pages

YOU GO, GLEN COCO, and stalk that new MAC collection page errrrday like a boss! (You and I both know that we’re guilty of doing this.)

Product pics will be on a white background now (unlike the current/old black background, which makes it harder to see things, yeah?). Both the product pics and the color swatches are much bigger, too, so it’ll be easier to see what’s in each collection.

Permanent line product pages

Same goes for products in the permanent line. All of the product pics and swatches are (GLORIOUSLY) bigger, and it really makes comparing things (like mascara brushes) easier…

There are also key phrases listed beneath the product names to give you an idea of what to expect from them and help you make a decision.

And within the products families — like the eye palettes shown here — you’ll be able to see bigger pics on a single page.

Plus, there will be multiple shots of each product, so you’ll be able to get a sense of what they look like from different angles.

With the eye palettes, I think it’s going to be much easier now that we’ll be able to see the names of the shades for all of the pans right there on the screen (YES!).

The extra angles will also be really helpful in shopping for brushes, because you’ll be able to see the brush heads from the front, side and top.

That’s right. Upgrade!! 🙂

The new product descriptions should make it easier to make decisions, too. Take the lipsticks, for example. Under “Key Claims and Benefits,” there’s a short, punchy list of the different finishes…

Oh, and fun fact! — MAC insiders call the swatches that are pictured on the website “smooshes,” because that’s what it looks like when products are smushed down from the top.

And if you need any extra MAC enabling, check out the “Works Well With” section under each product. The suggestions for brushes and other products that should also work well with whatever you’re eyeing are hand-picked by MAC’s product development team and makeup artists.

One big thing regarding ingredients — if you were hoping to see ingredient lists for every product, no dice this time around. The new website will not have full lists of ingredients, so you’ll still have to check the boxes at the counter for that.

One more thing to look forward to on the new MAC website…

An auto-replenishment program — Say you go through a bottle of Fix+ pretty regularly every other month. Well, you’ll be able to subscribe on the new website and have a replacement bottle (or anything else) delivered to you automatically. *

* From what I understand, it might be a little while before this gets rolled out.

Culture — A new section

The new Culture section will be kind of like an online blog/magazine with interviews and features of places and trends in the wide world of MAC. It’ll be updated every week, too, so add it to your reading list.

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There you have it! — a sneak peek at the brand new MAC website. I’ll also be posting some additional pics and deets in the coming days on Twitter and Instagram. The new website will go live in early June 2015 (no specific date yet).

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about what I saw during the preview, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

The white background is MUCH easier on the eyes, and I swear it makes the products pop off the page more than the black background does. I also really like having more picture angles for products, especially brushes. That’ll help.

While it all looks very pretty and it’s definitely a big improvement, I just wish they would put actual swatches on their website, applied on different skin colours.
It’s all fine and dandy showing us what the colour looks like, but I want to see what it looks like when it’s applied and whether it looks good on someone with my skin tone. The “swatches” they show now, don’t really give me that much information.

We talked about that a little in the preview, and from what I inferred, MAC does it because they feel that there are too many different variations of skin tones in the world, and even very subtle differences between people who are the same foundation color, and they don’t want to leave anyone out. Their motto is All Ages, All Races, All Sexes, and I guess they don’t think they could incorporate complete swatches for all of the hundreds or thousands of colors and finishes in the line.

I still think the bigger swatches will help a ton more than the old teeny tiny ones, which were basically useless a lot of the time, even though I’m an NC 42. I guess it’s just a decision to favor no one over trying to favor everyone and then inadvertently leaving someone out.

Blogs and YouTube are still gonna be the places to go for specific, individual swatches, and then the MAC website for the nitty gritty product details, comparisons and things like that.

I can understand that vision, but I feel like providing at least some swatches on different skin tones would go a long way.They probably wouldn’t have a swatch using my skintone (I’m very pale and very pink-toned which is hard to find the right make-up for), but I feel like even then, I’d have a better understanding of how the colour looks applied, how it clings to skin, what the finish looks like and how pigmented it is.

As for blogs, I haven’t found any blogger who has the same skin tone as I do. xsparkage and Vera Camilla come closest (though I’m more pink-toned) so I can’t really rely on specific swatches that I see on blogs.

I agree that the bigger swatches a big improvement, though. I just wish they’d gone that bit further.

I can’t wait for this! My single biggest gripe with the MAC website has been the background. I can barely see any color, and have to almost always rely on swatches from the internet. I’m so glad the new website is so user (make-up lover) friendly! 🙂Pavithra recently posted … The Bronzy Eye Staple

It’s really visually stunning. The photography is fantastic all-around. I don’t think I’d ever actually get to buying anything because I’d be clicking through all the pics like some kind of crazy crow in a room full of shiny objects! 🙂 And I’m not usually a fan of typewriter style font but I do like how they’re using it here (the Matte Lip and Wash & Dry info). Maybe because the photos look so polished to me, I like that the font is a little different, but simple? I don’t know but I like it!

I know what you’re saying. Sometimes having the serif fonts are distracting (to me at least), but having it next to the clean lines of the other fonts gives it some contrast. It’s kinda like how I like to wear makeup. Contrasts, baby! 😀

I dislike the main page because it’s too cluttered, too long and requires too much scrolling (in most beta testing and QA, the less scrolling the better). But I really like the other improvements they’ve made and think the product layouts and larger, more detailed swatches are awesome!

This is a huge makeover to the MAC site. I think I’m gonna love the white background. The new site is going to be even more dangerous! Now will they just make it easier to actually score some of the LEs?!Allison C recently posted … Game Changer: Nail Butter The Nail Treatment

Oh this looks so much better then the current one! So much more information and it looks really nice as well. Very appealing and it screams ‘buy buy buy’ to me haha. Can’t wait for it to go online!Susanne recently posted … Quote Love | #1

This is probably stupid, but I only bought directly from MAC once or twice. I hated the black background on their website, it was just too hard on my eyes. So I bought from Nordstrom, it’s stupid that a website would be such a make or break but I just couldn’t stand surfing the MAC site. This is a HUGE improvement, I think it’s much cleaner and much easier on the eyes!

I don’t think that’s silly at all. I shop online too, and part of the experience is to be able to enjoy the time on the site and spend it leisurely looking around. I totally understand where you’re coming from!

This is good! I always got discouraged by their website–I didn’t find it very user friendly and I needed to see MORE of the products. Ugh, those tiny swatches! If I ordered anything new, in person it was never what I expected. Thanks for the update Karen!

Hmm, as far as I know I don’t think there’s going to be an immediate price increase. Although I’ve noticed that MAC prices in general have been creeping up here and there throughout the years. I still remember when the lipsticks, which are now $16, were $14. Anyway, I think you have some time.

I wanted the 9-pan burgundy palette they recently put out, but I have two of the shades already and don’t care for a third, so I thought I’d just buy the rest in individual pans. Poppyseed is an LE, so I’ll have to see if there’s anything similar, and I really like the looks of Deep Damson, so I wanted to compare that to Sketch in person and see if I wanted to swap out that color. Then you posted those matte lipsticks and a couple of those really caught my eye! So I might check them out in person too. I ended up ordering the Antiqued, Haux and Star Violet pans last night though. 😀

Hi, I am a LONG time customer and a long-time lover of the old website. But I feel like I keep letting MAC know about my dissatisfaction with the web design in regards to the LIPSTICK WEBPAGE but no one is listening. I know I am not the only frustrated customer, so I thought I would explain in more detail I do like the new web design for the most part, but this one piece is frustrating. The old website had Square REAL swatches of ACTUAL lipstick color side-by-side that you could easily shop QUICKLY and compare shades side-by-side. This made for quick easy shopping, especially for busy busy moms of young children. Now, as you can see, only the highlighted or selected color (in this case…COSTA CHIC) is visible with a REAL swatch of the product. All of the swatches below COSTA CHIC are BLOCKS of SOLID COLOR…this provides absolutely no help to me as I want to compare say COSTCO CHIC to CORAL BLISS. With 185+ colors, you see how tedious this is to shop that many colors looking at solid blocks of colors, having to hover over each individual block of color to “reveal” the sample image, ugh right? One simple change I have asked MAC with no response is to consider putting all of the actual SWATCHES images of all the colors themselves on the web, instead of just blocks of random colors. Eliminate the need to “hover to reveal” the color. I would love to hear if others are as frustrated as me about this way of shopping the lipstick section.